


Easily Missable

by lovi



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Coffee, Getting Together, M/M, Public Transportation, Travel, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings, Winter, cozying up, implied former confession, implied former rejection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:21:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27167842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovi/pseuds/lovi
Summary: Several years after high school, Asahi visits Nishinoya. It's cold outside.
Relationships: Azumane Asahi/Nishinoya Yuu
Comments: 9
Kudos: 39





	Easily Missable

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mountsky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mountsky/gifts).



> HAPPY BIRTHDAY SKY!!!!!!!! <333 this is for you, you beautiful human being you. I reallyreallyreally enjoy writing asanoya so I'm glad you requested them!!!!! I really hope you enjoy :,,)

Asahi was walking across the cobblestone pavilion alone, in a country—alone, and was suddenly hyper-aware of the sound of his own footsteps. He cursed the quality of his own shoes, suddenly feeling too quiet for the too-loud presence of their smooth-chiseled heels. A gust of wind blew by and nipped sharp at his nose and cheekbones as he pulled his scarf up higher around his face. _France is cold_ , the thought passed fleetingly across the landscape of his thoughts just as a shred of familiarity buried itself within him like a dagger half sheathed.

“Asahi…” And Nishinoya was suddenly right in front of him, half-knelt on the cobblestone, shoelaces deftly woven between cold-chapped fingers. Asahi didn’t know what he was expecting: some grand scene like the movies where they spot eachother from afar and everything is suddenly the same again, where they run towards eachother like “eachother” was all they’d ever known? But the birds did not flock and disperse in a cloud of fluttering black like they did in the movies, and Nishinoya felt all too close and all too far at the same time; all too old, all too new. Broader shoulders, heavier arms. A chip in his incisor where there wasn’t one before.

“Nishinoya…” The words fell from his lips like a shrine and the shrine suddenly stood tall in front of him, taller than he remembered. Asahi dipped lower and that was their cue, Nishinoya stepping in to embrace Asahi around his big shoulders; small Asahi, three boys stacked on eachothers’ shoulders beneath a man’s broad suitjacket. Asahi felt the bare skin of Nishinoya’s calloused thumb brush across the back of his neck: _there must be a hole somewhere because he was most certainly wearing gloves._ They remained there for a moment, cautiously embracing something sentimental and eerily fragile. More fragile than it had been in years.

“Let’s go grab some coffee.” Nishinoya’s breath pushed hot through the wool of Asahi’s coat, into the flat bone of his shoulder.

“Okay, sounds good.”

Coffee was great; coffee was _warm_. The café Nishinoya chose was small and brick-clad, heated like a furnace from a small fireplace towards the back. This was where they sat, quiet and inconspicuous, shoved tight into a dusty corner; Asahi’s pants catching on the peeling white paint of his chair, on the exposed rust underneath. He politely removed his peacoat and tied his scarf around its woolen arm as he observed Nishinoya; Nishinoya who removed three of his layers in one fell swoop, Nishinoya whose pale stomach caught his eye for a brief second, riddled with some new scars Asahi wished to understand. Asahi watched Nishinoya ungracefully cram his hat, gloves and scarf into the sleeve of his puffy coat, trailed his eyes over to his lips: chapped, peeled. They spoke for a number of hours, all on things Asahi didn’t wish to speak on; words too cheap to fall from Nishinoya’s mouth, too bland to be woven from his tongue and teeth.

They left soon after dark fell, and now it was Nishinoya’s turn to be cold. He shivered beneath his layers, not quite sure how to clear the energy trapped between each fabric. He brushed against Asahi’s side, grabbed the slack of his jacket when he fell out of stride. Everything just felt so cold and Nishinoya was still trying to wrap his head around these shifts, these invisible movements beneath heavy blankets of distance. On the surface, the answer was simple: _I love Asahi. I told Asahi. Asahi can’t love me back._ But as the door to the corner shop swung open and Asahi pushed him off to the side with the protective sweep of an arm; as the emerging customer walked past and Nishinoya reached out to catch the door and hold it open for Asahi, its quiet jingle echoing the warmth in the chestnut of his eyes—Nishinoya felt cheated.

_How is this not love?_ He thought as Asahi offered to pay for his sandwich, carefully scanning through the label stuck haphazard across the plastic casing of his own. _How is this not devotion, not commitment? Why must anything change between us?_ He thought as he roughly translated the chip flavors for Asahi; as he conversed with the shopkeeper in his place, held his hard-earned change in his weather-worn gloves and exchanged it for something they had both chosen for one another.

These words bounced around his skull as they sunk down the grimy steps of the metro, they scratched at his surface like the cold wind tunnel singed across the raw skin of his cheekbones. They shuffled into the train just as the door was closing, stood comfortably in the center until two stops later when a large crowd pushed through, Asahi’s eyes widening in surprise. _I missed this,_ the thought graced Nishinoya’s mind like a comet, drew a watery smile from somewhere in his upper chest as Asahi’s arm wrapped around his; tucking him protectively into his chest as something far and distant clicked into place. Nishinoya removed his hat and could feel Asahi’s hot breath ghosting across the skin of his forehead as he looked up into his eyes, saw his kind gaze form like the condensation rising from their lungs against the black of the night sky. Something hung between them, dangled between two winter coats, surrounded by the glow of post-concert conversation. Asahi’s hand wrapped up around the nape of Nishinoya’s neck, large fingers weaving their way into tousled hair, shoving his cheek into the warmth of his chest. _Warmth._

“Yuu,” Asahi breathed into the top of his skull. “ _Yuu,_ I think I want to love you again.” Barely Audible; Easily Missable. They hung heavy in Nishinoya’s chest, cleaving their way through to his heart—Archimedes. The energy spilled out through Nishinoya’s lips in warm, bubbly laughter he couldn’t grab the reins of. It bucked him around like a bull.

“Asahi, I know.” And Asahi finally let his own words sink into himself, allowed his inner understanding to win. “You flew all the way to France just to say hello.” Nishinoya looked up and grinned, sharp canines digging into the flesh of Asahi's heart, chipped incisor already appearing more familiar.

Asahi could’ve cried.


End file.
